The all-party committee on electoral reform (ERRÉ) has just finished four months of expert and public consultations. They will make their recommendation to Government by December 1st.

Of the ERRÉ witnesses with a position on voting systems, 88% recommended Proportional Representation. This reinforces the findings from decades of research from around the world and of 13 previous electoral reform processes in Canada, including two thorough and impartial citizens assemblies.

When the Government launched the process without a mechanism for collecting empirical data, Fair Vote Canada, a multi-partisan advocacy group, started tracking the process very closely. We are releasing the results of our work to the media because we believe the process needs to be transparent and accountable.

(You can find key a list of results below with links our spreadsheets.)

Despite a strong call for proportional representation across all of the consultative platforms, we believe reforming the electoral system could be in serious trouble based on recent comments from Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Monsef.

President Réal Lavergne expressed Fair Vote Canada’s concerns “We are worried that the Minister and the Prime Minister are saying that we cannot count on the government keeping its promise to make every vote count. Yet experts and Canadians have clearly expressed themselves in favour of proportional representation, which is what it really means to “make every vote count.”.

David Merner, Vice-President of Fair Vote Canada and former LPC candidate (2015)

David Merner, Vice-President of Fair Vote Canada and a Liberal candidate in last year’s federal election adds “This is not the time for back-tracking. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Democratic Institutions have personally created a sense of hope in Canadians, building on the 2015 Liberal campaign promise of Real Change. Millions of voters believed that the government intended to keep its promises. We believed the political cynicism of the Harper years was behind us, and thousands of us participated in the government’s consultations in good faith.”

Merner says “Now is the time for the government to deliver on its promises.”

Highly regarded Conservative strategist and spokesperson for the Every Voter Counts Alliance, Guy Giorno, adds that “committee members must endorse what’s right for Canadians, not what benefits any particular party. Given the weight of the evidence before the committee, the only legitimate option is a recommendation for proportional representation. Let’s also remember that electoral reform was a major issue at the last election, and voters overwhelmingly supported parties promising change.”

The weight of expert testimony in favour of PR was echoed across the country in hundreds of town halls and public dialogues.

Over the next few days the ERRÉ will negotiate a recommendation for a new electoral system for Canada. The final report is due on December 1.

Fair Vote Canada’s President Réal Lavergne explains that “Once that recommendation has been made, it will be incumbent on the minister to carry it forward and for the government to act on it. Leadership will be required to educate both the public and parliamentarians, and to champion the proposed reform.”

“Based on all the results of the expert and citizen consultations, the committee’s only legitimate option is to recommend in favour of proportional representation.”

Key indicators from ERRÉ hearings

Canadian Electoral System expert Dennis Pilon testified before the ERRE Committee.

88% of expert witnesses who expressed a preference called for proportional representation

12% (3 events) – Report does not allow any majority view to be identified.

We are aware of at least 15-20 other community dialogues that are not yet posted on the ERRÉ site.

Minister Monsef organized two types of town hall consultations: ones in her own riding, and others as part of a cross-country tour. Here is an extract from the report submitted to the ERRÉ on town halls held by Minister Monsef in her Riding of Peterborough:

“It is clear that there is an appetite for thoughtful change to the electoral system. While opinions on the various electoral systems did vary, most participants indicated their support for a more proportional electoral process that still respected the need for local representation and simplicity of the ballot.”

Although Minister Monsef routinely conducted straw polls on issues such as mandatory voting and online voting in town halls on the road, she did not do the same regarding support for proportional representation. FVC volunteers attended these events across the country and shared their opinions. Here are a few quotes from participants:
Toronto: “PR was clearly the main issue for most. With respect to PR, many attendees spoke passionately and eloquently in favour, and if anyone present opposed it, he or she was not bold enough to express that view.”

Vancouver: “It seemed that 90% of the audience… did want some form of PR.”

Edmonton: “ It seemed most people were in support of some sort of proportional representation.”

Yellowknife: “She asked whether the participants liked FPTP to remain, or Ranked system or STV or MMP or Proportional Representation implemented. One voted for FPTP. Many voted for MMP and a few voted for PR.”

Yukon: “Some Yukoners came in support of our current electoral system (First Past the Post); more were on the side of moving towards proportional representation.”

Halifax: “The feedback from the groups certainly favoured PR.”

Montreal: “There was an overwhelming support for PR in the room.”

Thunder Bay: “Of the dozens who rose to spoke, everyone spoke in favour of PR.”

Gatineau: “ Participants spoke to PR at every opportunity they had… However, the format made this difficult… Taking into consideration those interventions that spoke to the issue of PR vs FPTP or AV, the overwhelming majority of interventions – in the order of 70% or more – were in favour of PR.”

Waterloo: From the report of 4 MPs: “Every group discussed the need for our new electoral system to feature some degree of proportionality.”

Charlottetown: “ About 90% of the people there were pro-PR.”

Winnipeg: After noting that three people were for FPTP because they feared losing local representation. The rest of the comments I heard were mostly just preferences for the different PR systems.”

Happy Valley-Goose Bay: “What we said was that we wanted PR BUT, it had to be a hybrid type that considered the lack of population and massive land mass of not only Labrador but 60 % of Canada, i.e. the North.”

Calgary: “There was overwhelming support for getting rid of the current system, with different groups mentioning STV or MMP as their top choice.”

A concluding note

And, to conclude, this eloquent quote from a Fair Vote Canada volunteer at the Victoria town hall where the Minister said she “can’t promise you that I’ll be advocating for PR because I haven’t heard that from an overwhelming majority across the country.“

Victoria:

“The wheels were skidding out of control as we tried to combat the spin we received at last night’s town hall on Electoral Reform. Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Democratic Institutions hosted the gathering in Victoria billed as “the last chance” to give your input. But the tone of the meeting was quite acrimonious. They were clearly managing the message while backpedaling from an election commitment about changing the electoral system. Not only did she defend Trudeau’s recent comments about no longer needing this reform because we voted for HIM.”

“After months of hearing expert witness by the proportionally cross-partisan panel, and while MPs held public consultations with thousands of Canadians across the country, are we now to believe there is no appetite for Proportional Representation? Monsef said that she has not yet made up her mind but the implication of her words was troubling. Will the government diminish the committee’s well-researched, democratic report in December by championing their predetermined preference? For many of us who attended last night the so-called consultation felt like a sham.”

PS from Laurel:

I’ve chosen to used my own photographs, here, not only because they are free culture photos (licensed to share under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License) but because the number of electoral reform events in and around Waterloo Region has been staggering, and I wanted to share some of them with you, but there were so many local ERRÉ events that I attended (and I didn’t attend them all) that there isn’t enough room here to use photos from them all!

There was a time not long ago when I knew nothing about electoral reform. It was only when I was asked to take photos at local Fair Vote Waterloo events that I found myself listening to what the Fair Vote folks had to say, and after a while I even started understanding it. This was not an easy process, nor was it fast. It can take a while to really gain an understanding of something completely different from what we’re used to.

That’s why every electoral reform event must incorporate an education piece. The thing that I have seen over and over again is that even though Canadians may not know the words for it, or how to fix it, we know something is wrong with our voting system that needs to be fixed.

That is why Mr. Trudeau’s “We will make every vote count” resonated with so many people.

And what I have learned from every discussion and every ERRÉ event I’ve attended is that when Canadians have a chance to understand the difference between winner-take-all and Proportional Representation, we almost always want some form of PR. I think that’s because most Canadians value fairness, and the only way to get to a point where the votes of most Canadians actually count will require some form of Proportional Representation.

Fair Vote Canada suggests Canadians who want to see the implementation of some form of Proportional Representation would do well to let the ERRÉ Committee know about it, and to make it easier for us, they have an automated tool to help us send a letter urging the committee to recommend PR here:

This is the eighteenth in the Whoa!Canada: Proportional Representation Series

No matter where you live in Canada, your Member of Parliament should be hosting a Town Hall to consult with you about electoral reform.

But we don’t have to wait for them because a large component of the ERRE Consultation Process is effectively “do-it-yourself.” That’s why Fair Vote Canada and other grass root organizations will be conducting their own community dialogues and information sessions across Canada. Any local community groups ~ anyone ~ can host their very own consultation or discussion night! If you’re interested you can get Fair Vote Waterloo’s Make Every Vote Count presentation.

September is the busy season for Electoral Reform as Canada’s Consultation process heats up in the rush to get it done.

Thursday September 8th

Find out why Canada is planning to modernize our voting system, and and learn how the government plans to make every vote count for Canada’s next election. Waterloo Region’s local non-partisan grass roots organization Fair Vote Waterloo will present the information about different voting system options. [note: you must register for this event]

Image Credit:
To the extent possible under law, Byron Weber Becker has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this Make Every Vote Count Presentation in any format. This work is published from: Canada. See http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

“A democratic voting system must encourage citizens to exercise positive choice by voting for the candidate or party they prefer. They should not find it necessary to embrace negative or strategic voting – to vote for a less-preferred candidate to block the election of one even less preferred.”

In response to pressure from a special interest group, Fair Vote Canada is currently holding a nation wide referendum to determine if its membership wishes to break away from its original purpose and instead support a non-proportional “Alternative Vote” electoral system known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

On the face of it, this is an internal issue. If you aren’t already a paid up member, you won’t be able to vote. But that doesn’t mean it won’t impact on the rest of Canada. Over the next few days I’ll be wading through the mailing list discussion that has been taking place around the referendum issues so I can write about what impact this may have.

In my experience, every time anyone suggests “Strategic Voting” a closer look shows that the real reason someone is telling me to vote strategically is because I will be voting in their candidate, not mine.

I haven’t had time to look into this exhaustively (after all I’m supposed to be revising my first draft not blogging) but this morning I just heard about something that sounded like strategic voting being suggested in the UK — where the ill advised Digital Economy bill was rushed through the legislative procedure without anything resembling proper scrutiny — on the eve of an election. Since there’s a Fair Vote Canada debate on the topic of Strategic Voting scheduled this month I thought I’d take a quick peek at Hang ’em

It looks like the UK’s “Hung Parliament” idea is a bit different than Canadian strategic voting. The idea of this seems to be prevention a majority government.

Once installed, majority governments have a nasty tendency to rule dictatorially.

Because they can.

The reasons for promoting a “Hung Parliament” seem much the same as mine for opposing majority government here in Canada. We need to achieve something a lot closer to democracy, and so long as Canada has alternating ruling parties we are unlikely to get the electoral reform we so desperately need.

Minority governments, elections and prorogations have thus far saved Canada from being been victimized by bad copyright reforms. Last year’s Canada wide copyright consultation process seemed very positive. Yet there have been indications that the magnificent outpouring that the copycon prompted from informed citizens may well have been a sham, and there are very real fears that this government intends to ignore this democratic input. The fact that Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore’s recent behaviour has prompted Michael Geist to dub him the iPadlock minister seems to indicate that bad laws similar to the DEBill may well be coming down on Canada.

Canadian politicians, like politicians the world over, are being mercilessly pressured by foreign interests. American tools like the USTR Watch List exist simply to try to intimidate other countries into legislating against their own sovereign interest and in favor of American corporate interests. Adding secret copyright treaties like Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (A.C.T.A.) to the mix only makes it worse.

Not so Secret A.C.T.A. Treaty negotiations

Oh, yes, they did make one draft public, but only because of continuous advocacy by concerned people like:

These three organizations are all American based, which seems a clear indication that one of the worst things about this American driven Intellectual Property or Copyright Reform is that it’s a case of the American government effectively working against American citizens in favor of American corporate interests.

The point is, that most of the people promoting and passing the legislation don’t understand the issues. It is bad enough to be saddled with bad laws because the government thinks they are good. It is inexcusable to be saddled with bad laws because of government ignorance. If it’s worth making the laws, its worth understanding them. But the bottom line is that all of this concern for IP is an excuse to attempt to impose government control over the Internet. Rushing to push through laws to control the internet — without understanding the Internet– is simply madness.

This type of lawmaking is clearly a failure of democracy. Many citizens are unhappy with the democratic erosion that seems to be increasing exponentially. Democracy is important to us.